Re: Life on planets around stars

From: starburst (chills_at_deathtospammers.utexas.edu)
Date: 10/28/04 

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 16:50:40 -0500

> Perhaps, if a planet has a deep ocean, the stellar output variability
> won't matter as much, since the ocean (whatever it happens to be made of)
> will act as a buffer and even out the variations. If the planet has
> latent heat of its own, it could also make any life in the deeps less
> dependent on the star's output. I think hopes for Europa lie along those
> lines.

And it's such an enormous "if", considering that we're not even certain
how amino acids decide to get themselves organized into "life". And it
goes pretty much without saying that even if life could form on Europa,
it couldn't have fire, which severely limits the possibility that we
could ever talk to them, or that they'd ever be interested in talking to
us, or notice that there are stars out there or ponder their place in
the cosmos in the way we have begun to over the past couple of millenia.

The limitations on the type of planet that could support the evolution
of human-type life that would contemplate the cosmos are pretty
staggering - stellar class, presence of water, presence of carbon,
distance from sun, eccentricity of orbit, proximity to center of galaxy
(so as not to lie within the interior areas of shrouding dust), clarity
of atmosphere... the list is quite something when you think about it.

We are *very* lucky to live on little bitty ol' Earth.

Chris

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